Beautiful Feet

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!

Romans 10:14-15

The glory of Christianity is that its message is grounded in history. It is objective truth. It is not some feeling that you are following that you hope will work out; it is the story of historic events: the coming of Jesus as a baby in Bethlehem, the resurrection, and the events that followed in the church. These are all historic events. The great thing of the Christian faith is not that we are presenting some philosophy, but a faith that is grounded in events that cannot be explained away.

Behind the message is the messenger. God has always used some object or person to convey truth, and this method will never be superseded. All the marvelous technology that we have today are only ways of conveying the preaching of the Word of God. You can preach today on television, radio, and the internet. You can have the message flung up to satellites and back to the four corners of the earth. But in every event, someone has to deliver the message.

God has sent people out everywhere to preach this word and to proclaim the truth. And behind the messenger is the sender. How can anyone preach unless they are sent? There's no doubt as to who does the sending. Jesus himself said, It is God who sends people. The great initiative in the process of redeeming men and women is the great heart of God that sends people out. He calls out men and women and sends them into the far reaches of the earth.

Paul brings all this before us in order that we might understand what a wonderful and beautiful thing this is that God has done: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! (Isaiah 52:7). What a beautiful thing it is to think of God sending out men and women all over the earth with this message. What a marvelous thing it is when this message takes root in the human heart! We never forget the ones who bring it to us. I am sure you can think of people who came to you with the message of Christ, and they are dear to you because of that. Feet are not usually the most beautiful part of the body, but even they become beautiful when this message is conveyed and God delivers and makes us whole.

It is like turning on a light switch. You flick the switch on the wall and the lights go on. It seems like such a simple thing, yet behind it is a very complicated process. Every time an individual comes to the place where in quietness he calls out to the Lord, a tremendous process is behind it. There is the darkness of the cross, the birth at Bethlehem, the miracle of the resurrection, the sending forth of the Holy Spirit — all this is the process behind a single individual when he calls on the name of the Lord. God is behind it, he has started it, and it's beautiful thing.

Father, I thank you that you have drawn me to yourself, and that you have given me grace upon grace, that I might be drawn to you. Amen.